Lab 1 Results
This lab activity entails brainstorming ideas for an initial AEV concept design as a team. The concepts need to include one design that will travel on the monorail and two other designs that are not necessarily using the monorail. As you can look through each lab, the COVID-19 pandemic and other educational changes were made so this was not possible. The main task of the group was to become familiar with the physical hardware involved with the control system and to be able to properly setup, program with basic function calls, and execute the desired function of the system. The system consisted of the AEV motor, lithium battery, motor, and other various assembly parts.
Lab 2 Results
Lab 2 was designed for students and lab partners to become familiar with the automatic control system hardware components. This will set students up for success when it came to setting up the AEV software. Lab partners will be programming the basic function calls in controlling the AEV. After that task is completed, we were able to upload programs to the arduino and test. This is when students became familiarized with troubleshooting techniques when certain things did not work.
Two scenarios were given to the students to test which type of propeller was best for the model that our lab group picked. The programming code that we used on this lab is located under the arduino programming tab in the menu. It was concluded that the best of the two scenarios that will work with our code this far will be the first model that we conducted. This is because it is the most similar to the original model, and since we don’t have a set program to run the AEV, it will be the safest route to go. This will ensure that the ride for the tourist will be the smoothest possible thus far.
Lab 3 Results
The purpose of this lab was to have students become familiar with techniques used for design decision making, such as screening and scoring matrices. Students were to program the sample AEV for a specific operation and test on the classroom track. After this is completed, we performed the concept screening and scoring methods with AEV design concepts using the sample AEV as a reference.
Concept Screening Matrix: A concept screening matrix is a quick method to down-select ideas. It is used to combine various concepts or parts and is often good enough for simple projects. Below is the concept screening score sheet our group conducted after the AEV performance.
Concept Scoring: A concept scoring matrix provides a better resolution than a screening matrix. Concept scoring matrices may provide better definition of concepts and help define the final project. This method creates or refines a hierarchy of “selection data” on which success criteria plays a dominate role in the final design. Below is the concept scoring score sheet our group conducted after the AEV performance.
Lab 4 Results
The objective of this lab is to become familiar with the external sensor hardware components. Lab partners will become familiar with troubleshooting techniques and program function calls for using external sensors with AEV control.
The reflectance sensors have a single infrared LED and a small photo-transistor on a red board. This sensor works in handy with the wheel that has the reflective tape. It is very important to ensure that the sensor is very close to the tape on the wheel to obtain an accurate reading. If the sensor is too far away, some marks may not be recorded, thus giving inaccurate data. So far, the AEV has behaved on the track pretty well with the program we have provided with it. The AEV did not travel very far, and was not constructed to survive this trip…yet. We will have to make some changes to the design, starting with changing the base for the external parts of the vehicle. We are changing our base to become a T-Shape. Team 6 has not yet tested proper commands to program the AEV due to battery issues. So we are not sure if there are some commands that are more useful than the others yet.
Lab 5 Results (System analysis 1)
This lab was the first system analysis of our AEV vehicle. The analysis that was being conducted was the efficiency of the AEV design that we have came up with. The objectives of this lab were to become familiar with propulsion system efficiency, become familiar with wind tunnel testing equipment, relating the AEV to real life objects, and lastly, linking wind tunnel testing to the AEV.
The wires for the motors and the battery fall out of the arduino board every time the AEV is moved slightly too much. This puts several setbacks on progress because it happens just about every lab day. Also the first set of sensors that were provided to the team didn’t work. Soon after that the zip tie had pulled one of the sensors away from the hole and therefore one sensor couldn’t see the reflective tape.
When the lab first started, the code for the AEV was being written on Josh’s laptop, this became an issue because Josh no longer had MatLab or access to MatLab on his laptop, therefore the team reset up the arduino IDE program on a class computer and set up MatLab for the AEV data recording as well.
Finally the team was able to get a test run that correctly followed the scenario from lab 6, while figuring out the correct code for the run the team added some balance weight to the back of the AEV to balance out the front and back wheel. The data recorded from the test run was saved and the excel spreadsheet was sent to Grant.
Below are the tables and Graph comparisons of the theoretical data given and the data we tested with our AEV in the wind tunnel
Lab 6 Results (System analysis 2)
This was a similar lab to Lab 5. Instead of testing in a Wind Tunnel, we tested the AEV on the actual track. First the arduino code had to be finished. This took some trial and error with testing different numbers, but by the end of the lab the AEV was working properly to fit scenario 1. We were able to use the MatLab function aevDataRecorder to extract the data needed from our AEV run on the track. The information including current, voltage, and marks was put into an excel spreadsheet. This was later converted into useful information like velocity, energy, and supplied power.
Performance Test of Pink AEV Theoretical Data
Disclaimer: Due to COVID-19, our final AEV design was not able to be implemented due to not being able to be in a classroom setting to do the 4 performance tests. These links include all the converted EEPROM data for every run, all the figures are spread across the excel sheets and the phase break down plots are on the figures doc.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zYG7aOkkNVch49_p5TXFiFo9tci0oj7dGn5alHf9vvI/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jy0GTKQiiT4XTcjv0kXZAghUMhJLnzwBJlOW8DK8bBE/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_Gxl9YWC7yMarsRVB10FY-5i1opvkN0qwiWpV7jArxE/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fs8aP6YpROHrTfmNh_i3p1pvJLcq8oEfLPnhSBLiW0k/edit?usp=sharing